Inventions that didn't find their lasting purpose until after they had been around a while. These famous examples illustrate the "invention is the mother of necessity" principle Jared Diamond puts forth in Chapter 13 of Guns, Germs, and Steel. His point was that many breakthroughs of technological innovation come not when an inventor locks himself in a room to solve some problem (invention filling a need) but rather comes from a product that exists being re-purposed to fill a need.
| Inventor |
Invention |
Date |
Original Purpose |
| Thomas Edison |
Phonograph |
1877 |
Recording last words of dying people, books for the blind, teaching spelling, and others. |